Hilton Head girls, May River’s Arroyo finish second at 4A cross country meet
The Hilton Head Island girls country team came close to repeating as state champions Thursday.
But the Seahawks finished one point short behind James Island at the Class 4A cross country championships at the Sandhills Research Center in Columbia. James Island finished with 68 points while the Seahawks had 67.
Hilton Head was was hoping for its seventh state title in school history.
Led by Cynthia Gudaitis’s third-place finish (18:46), the Seahawks had four of the top 16 runners in the race. Sarah Neville (19:36) was fifth, Laney Duncan seventh (19:46) and Regan Gilman (20:30) 16th.
James Island had three runners in the top 20 including first-place finisher Hannah Vroon (18:25), and two more in top 30. HHI’s fifth-place runner was 51st.
May River’s Anya Arroyo (18:36) finished second behind Vroon and the Sharks’ Victoria Sosa was 13th. As a team, Bluffton finished sixth and May River was eighth.
In the boys’ race, Hilton Head Island, Beaufort and May River all had runners earn all-state honors, which is made up of the top-15 runners.
HHI’s Max Strunna (16:51) was ninth, Beaufort’s Marlon Belden was 11th and May River’s Jaxon Beebe (16:50) was 15th. Beebe’s teammate, Mills Campbell was 16th.
In the team standings, Beaufort was third, May River fourth and Hilton Head Island sixth. Catwaba Ridge’s Sam Rich (15:08) finished first while the Eastside boys won the team title.
The championships were trimmed from 16 to 12 teams in each class and split into two days with Class 3A and 4A on Thursday and Class 2A and 5A on Friday.
